To be honest, I've never bought into the hype regarding organic eating.

It's so much more expensive. And food is food, right? It's always going to consist of the basic macronutrients - all of the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that my body needs, and the same micronutrients too. So why the fuss?

Even if organic food is be 10%, better, it costs 50% - 100% more. Why would I do that to my wallet?

Recently, however, I had an experience that has me questioning my perspective.

One drop at a time

I'm a huge fan of coffee. It's perhaps one of my favorite things on the planet.

And I drink a huge amount.

For the past several years have developed quite a high tolerance to caffeine. But I noticed that if I drink excessive amounts, such as having four or five coaching sessions in a row, all at cafes, I start to feel jittery.

At some point, I'll even start to feel mentally burnt out, and I'll need a brief nap to sort of reset my brain.

Coffee at some cafes would affect me more in this way, than the same size coffee from other cafes. I drink my coffee black, no sugar, so there weren't any other obvious variables, just the bean itself.

When making coffee at home I usually use a french plunger, and use Aurora brand coffee- and I experience perhaps the strongest jittery and tired effect there.

A friend shares some wisdom

This is a feeling that I strongly associated with being over-caffeinated...

That is... until last week, when I was speaking with one of my barista friends at my local Starbucks. She's a sweet girl, and expressed some concern at the amount of coffee I drink ( she has no idea that Starbucks is just maybe 30% of my daily coffee ).

She proceeded to share some interesting ideas...

Her view is that where foods like coffee or juice are concerned, organic is the only way to go- because the process of concentrating ( whether brewing or juicing ) also concentrates the pesticides and chemicals that the drink contains.

This was something I'd never thought about, and it had never even occurred to me to ask whether Starbucks coffee was organic.

She just laughed... "nope, not even a little."

A new experiment begins

This week, I needed to restock my coffee beans, and decided to splurge and spend a little bit of extra for organic beans.

In this case, the cost was only maybe 20 to 30% more than the non organic varieties.

The coffee tastes just as good, perhaps even better, more subtle notes, more richness.

And even though I drink roughly 2 liters a day, I never feel that the jittery-tired effect that I always associated with overdosing on caffeine.

I've tested this both with plunger-ground beans, and cold brew approach.

What a discovery - it was always the bean and never the preparation that made the big biggest difference.

More questions

Now this has me questioning everything.

What chemicals exactly were in the non-organic coffee that was affecting me?

What kind of impact was it having? I'm very aware of the short-term feelings, jitteryness, distraction, etc, but what about long term impact?

In my other foods, what's the difference between organic and non-organic there?

Most likely those things which I consume in the greatest quantity, coffee, chicken, fruit, kumara, oatmeal... I should invest in the higher priced organic varieties to see how my body and mind react.

If I don't, that long term chemical pesticide buildup could have real damage that I'm not aware of.

Even the short term impact the jitteryness, and tired brain - eliminating that alone is well worth the added cost.

If you have not tried to switch to organics, and have similar questions, I encourage you to put yourself on a one month trial. Switch everything to organic that you possibly can. And see if your body and mind react differently.

You may question everything that you ever thought about food as well.